CHICAGO — Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner ultimately supported a proposal that could have further diminished his team’s ability to outspend other teams.

“All I can tell you is, there’s seven of us (owners) on labor policy: Boston, me, several mid-markets, couple small markets,” Steinbrenner said Wednesday at MLB’s owners’ meetings. “We’re a very diverse group. And when we came up with the proposal, including CBT (competitive balance tax) and luxury tax that we brought to the union, it was a unanimous — on our committee — a unanimous deal.”

In October, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said that many recent baseball collective bargaining agreements were targeted “to prevent the Yankees from being the Yankees.” That the CBAs were to keep other large-market teams at bay as well in how they’re able to use their financial might, or as Cashman put it, “the benefits that come with being in the markets that we’re in.” The CBAs, Cashman said, were meant “to shore up the other markets.”

Baseball’s luxury-tax structure, formally known as the competitive balance tax, has indeed been marketed as an endeavor toward a more level playing field since it was agreed upon in 1996, coming out of the 1994-95 strike. (Whether it actually has achieved what the owners have said it would, or has created other dynamics not as often advertised, is a sore point for players.)

Cashman noted in October that he couldn’t speak directly for his boss, Steinbrenner. On Wednesday at the Four Seasons Hotel in Chicago, Steinbrenner tried to stay away from labor in a 20-minute conversation with reporters. But when asked if he had similar feelings to Cashman, he pointed to the owners’ August proposal to the players — a proposal that ostensibly would have, at least in one way, further diminished the Yankees’ advantage.

The owners proposed to effectively lower the first luxury-tax threshold by $30 million from where it is today, from $210 million to $180 million. They also wanted to increase the penalty for going over the threshold. Among the trade-offs that would have come with that proposal would have been a salary minimum of $100 million for team spending.

The players were not interested in that structure. And importantly, the proposal likely would have served to keep overall player costs down over time — something all teams would have enjoyed, the Yankees included. But the proposal nonetheless would have diminished the Yankees’ ability or willingness to outspend other teams, at least in the seasons they might otherwise have been inclined to do so.

The owners on commissioner Rob Manfred’s labor policy committee are Steinbrenner, Mark Attanasio of the Brewers, Ray Davis of the Rangers, Ron Fowler of the Padres, John Henry of the Red Sox, Dick Monfort of the Rockies and Jim Pohlad of the Twins.

“Every owner on the committee, there are certainly things in the proposal that we didn’t like. I mean, every owner,” Steinbrenner said. “But we wanted to put together a proposal that addressed their concerns and come together as a group. And we did. But I mean, specific things — nothing’s ever going to be perfect, in any deal. Any deal.”

The Yankees in 2021 avoided carrying a payroll over the first luxury-tax threshold. Steinbrenner on Wednesday didn’t commit either way to whether the Yankees would exceed it in 2022.

“Any given year, there’s a number of reasons to try to stay under the threshold. But we rarely do,” he said. “Because our number one goal is to field a championship-caliber team, period.”

Steinbrenner said CBA discussions with the players have been continuous, and that he’s “hopeful that we will have a productive outcome.” But Steinbrenner was reticent to say anything more about the bargaining sessions.

“Guys, done with labor,” Steinbrenner said when asked if a deal were still possible with two weeks to go until the expiration of the current CBA. “Yeah, we have two full weeks. And like I said, meetings are continuous, a lot’s being discussed.”

As many general managers did last week at the GM meetings in California, Steinbrenner said it’s been “business as usual” for him and Cashman.

“We’re just doing everything that we always do,” Steinbrenner said. “We just finished the pro scouting meetings. A couple days ago I was in Tampa sitting down with our player development people, trying to figure out who might be a real contributor next year, and who probably isn’t ready yet. And you know, Cash has been talking internally about potential trades. These are all the things we always do. It is business as usual. And you know, so if the process speeds up for some reason, faster than in a normal year, we’ll try to keep up, but … it’s not going to make me make any rash decisions (with players) sooner than I want to.”

The scenario that could make the process of free agency speed up would be a lockout, which would delay transactions likely until a new deal is reached. And the chance of a lockout seems to grow by the day. If a deal is not reached by 11:59 p.m. ET on Dec. 1, the owners will very likely freeze the sport and introduce the sport’s first work stoppage since the 1994-95 strike.

As is typical for the end of MLB’s quarterly owner meetings, Manfred has a planned press conference to close the proceedings. That is likely to occur midday Thursday.